Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is set to be the "first clown in space" when he blasts off for the ISS later this month. He also has some surprises planned for the crew that just might get him killed.

"I'm a person with a pretty high spirit, who's there to crack jokes and make jokes to those guys, and while they're sleeping, you know, I'll be tickling them," Laliberte said.

Laliberte even has a pocket full of red clown noses to give to the crew. Oooh boy...this is going to be the longest ISS mission ever. If they can handle this, Mars should be no sweat. Fortunately, this will be the last wealthy, eccentric space tourist the crew will have to deal with for quite some time. Astronauts from the US will take up the extra seats on Soyuz missions in order to travel back and forth from the ISS while the shuttle program transitions. [Yahoo via Neatorama]